When it was announced that Essex Market, New York’s oldest public market, would close in its old location that had been on the Lower East Side since the 1940s, a ripple of fear shot through New York. Would the existing vendors continue on in the space at Essex Crossing, a sprawling mixed-use mega development opening across the street? The new Essex Market thankfully debuts today with all 21 existing vendors which span Puebla Mexican, Shopsin’s General Store, and Ni Japanese, alongside 17 new vendors, like South Williamsburg favorite, Samesa (their first expansion to Manhattan) and Flower Power, a wonderfully witchy, old-school herb shop in the East Village (the full list of new and old vendors are below).
Located at 88 Essex St., the beautiful new 37,000-square-foot market (said to be triple the size of the old space) will be home to a total of 39 vendors, as well as two seated restaurants and a demonstration kitchen, where the market hopes to host classes and workshops.
Essex Market served as an affordable resource for fresh produce, hard-to-find provisions, as well as providing a rare public space to just sit and eat a packed lunch. In a neighborhood with soaring rents and increasing wage gaps, the Essex Market hopes to remain a valuable service for a diverse set of customers.
When Time Out reached out to the New York City Economic Development Corporation handling the overhaul about rent figures for the old space versus the new space, they declined to comment about specifics, but said rents would not increase per square foot in the new space, with prices below market-rate. Whether that figure would go up after a certain time remains unclear, but the city will maintain ownership to keep the mission the same.